Shippers And Workers Give Talks A Try

Negotiators for dockworkers and shipping companies toned down their antagonistic rhetoric after spending hours with a federal mediator who is trying to end the West Coast port shutdown that has staggered industries across the United States.

The stalemate caused by a bitter contract dispute has stopped all commercial shipping at 29 Pacific ports for nearly a week. But the standoff of the last few weeks seemed to have eased when dockworkers and the shipping companies emerged from one of their sessions.

"We're working hard. We plan to be here for as long as it takes," dockworkers union president Jim Spinosa said Thursday. "We're here to get a contract, whatever it takes."

Amid calls for emergency federal intervention to reopen the waterfront, the Bush administration continued to say it hopes the sides can settle their differences at the negotiating table.

Both sides said they thought the talks would last a while.

"We were told to bring our toothbrushes," said Joseph Miniace, lead negotiator for the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents shipping lines.

But the longer the association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union take to reach a settlement, the more the economic effects furrow through the wobbly U.S. economy.

The impact of the dockworkers' lockout has already spread hundreds of miles inland from the seaports it has shut down, idling non-union barge loaders who have no reason to load up ships that won't be unloaded when they arrive downriver.

The lockout also has Boeing, the world's largest commercial airplane manufacturer, feeling the pinch in factories. The hatches and other major parts - are sitting in container ships waiting to be unloaded at the Ports of Seattle and Tacoma and taken to nearby factories around Puget Sound. Boeing spokesman Peter Conte says that without those parts, which had been expected to arrive next week, the company will have to build the jets "out of sequence" from the normal process. Most of the parts are coming from manufacturers in Japan, Australia and elsewhere overseas.

"It could cause a lot of hiccups," Conte said Thursday. "It just becomes troublesome overall."

He said he did not want to speculate on whether production slowdowns would cause further layoffs at the company, which has shed nearly 30,000 workers in the past year.

The governors of Connecticut, Idaho, Michigan, North Dakota and Wyoming are all sending letters to President Bush, asking him to order a 60-day cooling off period in the labor dispute.

"Every hour is another hour of economic harm," federal mediator Peter Hurtgen said before Thursday's negotiations began at a hotel here. "I think we all feel the pressure."

Along the coast, 162 ships were either idle at the docks or have dropped anchor, according to the shipping association. Another 13 were due to arrive by Friday morning.

Food is rotting in cargo holds, railroads have halted grain shipments from the Midwest and already one part-starved auto plant near San Francisco has closed since the meltdown over a contract dispute led to a port closure that began last Friday and resumed Sunday after a six-hour attempted reopening.

The lockout hit the transportation and manufacturing sectors first, and is now causing increased concern in the U.S. agriculture industry, as evidenced Thursday by a sharp drop in wheat futures on the Chicago Board of Trade.

The economic impact of the work stoppage is accelerating and could be costing the U.S. economy $2 billion a day, said Robert Parry, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

That has led to mounting pressure on President Bush to intervene under the Taft-Hartley Act. Under the act, a president can block a strike or lockout for 80 days if the dispute will "imperil the national health or safety." First, though, an inquiry board would investigate the issue, which could take several days.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Thursday the U.S. economy is at risk, but wouldn't speculate on Taft-Hartley.

"The administration continues to urge labor and management to come together to get an agreement because the longer this goes, the more harm it will do to the economy," he said. "The president is routinely informed of the status."

The last time the government intervened in a work stoppage under Taft-Hartley was 1978, when President Carter unsuccessfully tried to end a national coal strike.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, is among the lawmakers who have appealed for President Bush to order the ports reopened under those powers. Such pleas were echoed by the National Association of Manufacturers and American Trucking Associations.

"I'm banking on the president stepping in to force the two sides to go back to work," said Dennis Sheldon, senior vice president of Los Angeles-based clothing designer Guess Inc. "I'm convinced this is the number one domestic issue."

A group of manufacturers planned to meet with White House officials Friday to press for intervention. The manufacturers association is in constant contact with Bush's Cabinet, including Commerce Secretary Donald Evans.

Federal intervention has become a shadow lurking around the talks.

"It's very evident that that could be a possibility," Spinosa said in an interview. "That may be one way to getting the employers back to being responsible."

Meanwhile, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka urged Mr. Bush not to invoke Taft-Hartley. Over the summer, unions charged the White House with meddling in the talks, and the White House has since meticulously avoided the appearance of getting involved.

Thursday's mediation session focused on new dockside technology, Hurtgen said in an interview. That issue has been the main sticking point that led to a meltdown in talks last week and the subsequent lockout of the 10,500-member union.

Longshoremen have said they can accept short-term job losses from the increased efficiency that computerized cargo tracking systems will bring, but want guarantees that new technology-related positions be union-covered. Shipping lines have said trade increases will more than offset job losses, but the union shouldn't have jurisdiction over every new job.

Hurtgen said he plans to stay in San Francisco until he brokers a resolution - or until the talks fall apart again.